My name is Alex Rolland. When I was a toddler, I watched my parents get murdered by a man in a hood. I was then kidnapped and smuggled to the USSR, where I was made into someone else … into something else. Now I am back to Nigeria to avenge all those who have suffered, like me, at the hands of cruel, corrupt politicians. I am … The Nivenger!

EPISODE 4: THE SHOWDOWN

There was a light tap on his shoulder, and Alex woke with a start. He looked up to see Masha looking down on him. She was as beautiful as he remembered, her eyes as intense as anything. Her hair shaded her face, hanging around her head with grace. She had changed into a shiny black outfit with a utility belt boasting of a lot of blades and a holstered firearm. She carried a scabbard on her back with a blade that stretched to her right thighs.

Alex’s eyes stung with sleep. He struggled to a sitting position and looked back at his wife. She sat down, crossed her legs, and sighed.

“Alex…,” she said.

Alex braced his heart. He knew this was going to come—that she was finally going to tell him why she had come.

“Masha,” Alex started. “Before you proceed, you must know that while I was away, I was so broken by leaving you I felt that the only way to fill the void in my heart was to find someone else. I knew wine wasn’t going to fill it—it had to be love again.”

Masha swallowed hard. Her eyes bristled with tears. “And did you?” she whispered.

Alex said, “Yes and no. Well, then I thought it was love. But when I saw you walk towards me last night, I realized what I’d had was nothing compared to you…”

“What is her name?” asked Masha.

“Masha…” Alex said. He might not be interested in Ola again. Nevertheless, he didn’t want her killing Ola.

“I’m not going to kill her, Alex,” Masha said. “I just want to know who’s been sleeping with my husband.”

Alex raised up a hand. “We never made love, Masha. We kissed a couple of times, but we never did consummate our … well, our love. How could I? You were always in my heart.”

Masha said, “Well that’s all good and nice, Alex, but you need to know that I’m only here because the twins came for you. I’m only here to save you. And I’ve done that. I’m not here to join in your crusade…”

Alex knew this was true, but hearing her say it still hurt to hear that she wasn’t joining him, she wasn’t staying. And he wouldn’t leave until he had seen the Librarian and until he knew the content of the Book of Skull.

A voice said, “I think we might not have a crusade anymore.”

They both looked up at Lexie. He looked downtrodden.

Alex rose slowly to his feet, his heart racing. “What do you mean?” he asked with a measured tone.

“The Librarian, he’s gone,” Lexie said, raising up a tab with a headline about a shooting at the Great Ibom Library last night. “And the book was burned.”

Alex took the tab and read it, while Lexie narrated the story.

“How do we know it’s really the Librarian?”

Lexie nodded towards Alex. “There’s a camera in the underground chapel and facing the street, where they burned the book. It’s true. We lost.”

Alex watched the video on Lexie’s tab showing the twins shoot the Librarian while taking a book from his hand and burning it at the foot of the Great Ibom Library. Watching this, Alex felt a multitude of emotions, all of which accumulated in an incredibly high degree of wrath. His hands tightened around the tab until its screen cracked and drew blood.

Alex let the tab drop to the floor, watching as his dream of avenging his parent slip through the cracks and there was nothing he could do to stop it. The Cabal had won in the end. They had stopped him.

“Alex…” Masha said, coming to stand in his front and putting both her hands on both his shoulders. “Calm down, Alex…”

Lexie said, “Calm down? Calm down? Those bastards have to pay!”

Alex glanced at Masha. “They will pay.”

Masha sighed. “You can’t touch them, Alex. They were mere mercenaries just like we were once. The only people who need to pay is this Cabal. And this night they will get their turn. After we rid the world of them, you will leave this country and come home with me…”

Masha’s words were like a salve that soothed his wounded heart … his wounded pride. He felt a great disappointment fall on him, but she was there shouldering it alongside him. Maybe it was time to let go and return to Russia. Maybe this was fate—maybe…

Alex nodded. “Da…” After a thought, he said, “So you will fight with me this night?”

Masha smiled. “Da.”

* * *

Both Masha and Alex leaped off the helicopter at about a thousand feet above The Reinsurance House. Their parachute deployed a few seconds later, and they landed some seconds after that. With knives and with practiced ease they cut themselves free of the parachute, rose to their feet weapons drawn, and they approached the roof door that led to a service stairwell.

Masha wielded a long blade and an Uzi, while Alex was dressed in his Nivenger suit, a stretched bow and arrow leading the way. Lexie had done a scan of the building and found out that the meeting was being done in a conference room on the fifth floor. There were about ten guards surrounding the conference room, which contained twenty four heat signatures (Lexie had used IR Satellite to scan the room). Twenty four elders—twenty four dead bodies.

They walked into the service stairwell and descended to the fifth floor. They met about three guards in the service well, whom they dispatched to hell as quickly as they saw them. On the fifth floor, they found the rest of the guards. The guards were no match for Masha and Alex’s combined skills. Arrows and blades flew into the air. And bodies dropped. Silence returned.

They were in a dimly lit corridor. At the end of the hallway was the door into the conference room. The meeting was still on going. They could hear the hushed whispers of the twenty four elders. All Alex could feel was anger.

They marched up to the door and opened it.

Twenty four heads turned to look at the Nivenger as he walked in. There was a scream of terror and some of the Cabal members rose to their feet to flee, but Masha walked in and aimed her gun.

“Nobody move!” she barked, and they fell back into their feet. They all looked with terror at them, all except two of the Elders who were at the heads of the long table.

“Alex,” said the one at the end of the table on the other side of the table. “Welcome.”

“You’re expecting me?” Alex asked.

“Well, not today,” he replied. “But we all knew this day may come. We just didn’t expect it this soon.” He paused. Then said, “I trust that by now you already know that there’s no point in your crusade. Your parents’ legacy is dead. The Book is gone.”

Alex didn’t even reply. He pulled out three arrows and released them in five quick successions. It took him barely ten seconds. Nobody reacted in that time. Yet, fifteen elders were dead with arrows sticking in their chests. The rest tried to rise to flee, but Masha released bullets into the air and barked, “I said nobody MOVE!”

They froze and fell back into their chairs. Nine elders were left, including the two at the two heads of the table.

The man didn’t seem fazed that fifteen of his comrades were dead. He said with an offhandedness. “Was that really necessary?”

Alex didn’t reply. He threw five blades into the air from his utility belt. Five other elders caught the blades in their eye. They didn’t die immediately. They screamed and thrashed before they fell to the ground, dead. Four were remaining. Two tried to run, in spite of Masha’s warning. She cut them down like sheep with her Uzi. Once the smoke from her gun cleared in the room, two elders were remaining, the two men at the heads of the long table. The leaders of the Cabal, Alex assumed.

The man who had been speaking rose to his feet. His colleague did the same thing. This time, his colleague spoke.

“Your father would have been proud of you, Alex,” he said. Before he said anything else, a tongued his cheek and a white substance appeared in his mouth. He chewed on it and swallowed.

“No!” Alex roared and pulled two arrows. Before he could aim and shoot, the two elders began to foam, thrashing all the way to the ground. Before their heads hit the ground, the cyanide poisoning had taken their lives.

Alex muttered, “No…”

He stood and looked at the dead cabal members. He still wasn’t satisfied. But he knew this would have to do.

Some minutes later, Lexie said in their ears: “RRS squad cars are approaching the building from the south. You have two minutes to get out of there.”

Alex’s shoulders slumped. He turned and followed Masha out of the conference room. By the time their got to the roof, the building was already surrounded with armed policemen who were rushing into the building.

A helicopter with a dangling rope approached from the East. It was about a minute out.

Masha looked at Alex and said, “Alex, tell me this is all over.”

Alex waited for half a minute before nodding his head. “It’s all over. This is the end.”

Masha nodded. “Good.”

They both caught a hold of the rope and the helicopter carried them off the building to safety.

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Writing has always been my passion. When I was twelve, while my mates still flipped through picture books and comics, I took an interest in thick-sized, picture-less “story books” that opened me up to a whole new world of possibilities and adventures. However, I did not publish my first book until my second year in Pharmacy School when I’d usually learn about drugs in the day and write fiction in the night. I love writing because I relish the power it gives to create a world of my own where anything and everything is possible. I guess this explains my proclivity for the fantastical.

7 Comments

Don’t like the ending. Alex parents are member of the cabal. What happened to them? Why did they leave the cabal. The story didn’t address all this questions. Rather It leave me more in suspense. All d same well written